Yeah, unfortunate that the seller screwed you over in that regard...once you get around to replacing everything worn out, hopefully the Life will start being more reliable for you!

The R-2 is a neat little Kei, but I'm not as big of a fan of it's styling compared to some of the others. I DO like the styling on the Suzuki Fronte though (especially the Coupe!), which is also a 2-stroke, so that's a distinct possibility...the Subaru Rex could be a candidate too, as could a 2nd-gen Minica or a Daihatsu Fellow Max...so pretty much every other classic Kei, haha

The Alto Works is my first choice for a modern Kei, I'd say, if I were going to get one - I love the Cappucino and Beat too, but their prices have been rising pretty steadily . I like the look of the Wagon R (especially the RR version if I could find it with a manual!), even if it is a "common" car in Japan - as it's a lot more common it tends to be cheaper and probably a bit easier to get parts for when needed, plus, nobody would have one here anyway!

Going to take your Minica for a few drives when you're home for Christmas, or is she going to be safely tucked away in the garage? I don't know how much snow you get in Texas, but they salt the roads like mad up here...

The ultimate plan for this car is, once I get it back to the states, to tear it completely apart and do a full body restoration. Then build the engine with some nice high compression, big bore pistons, maybe a wild cam, some WPC coating, and any other little trick I can think of to get it revving to 11,000 rpm+. At that point in time, there won't be hardly anything on the car that's been left alone, so it should be fairly reliable!

The Suzuki Fronte Coupe/Suzuki Cervo was actually my first choice when I was searching for another kei to buy, but they were just way too expensive. Clean ones were going for around 800,000 yen (8,000 USD)! Here's a pretty decent looking Cervo for 600,000 yen, which if it had been for sale when I bought my Life, I probably would have gone and checked it out. Being a Cervo though, it's got a 550cc triple in it, which is cool, but not quite as cool as the 360cc version in the Fronte Coupe.

The Cappuccino is definitely pulling big bucks lately, but for some reason, the Honda Beat is still pretty reasonably priced! I actually would have purchased a Beat instead of my Life if the US shared the same 15 year import rule as Canada. Here's a pretty decent looking one (albeit with some soft top woes it seems) for just 300,000 yen.

Totally planning on taking the Mitsubishi for a spin when I get home for Christmas! It's not titled and registered in Texas yet, which means I can't take it on the public roads, but fortunately, our driveway is a half mile long, so I can get some good driving done without having to worry about Johnny Law. Although, according to my pops, it won't start at the moment, so I have to suss that out first. I'm pretty excited to see the old girl again though!

Alrighty, so I managed to get back out to the garage this weekend to get some genuine work done!

I checked the head with a straight edge and it's not warped in the slightest, but I was slightly worried about it being a little rough. So, I borrowed some nice, flat grinding stones.

I ran these guys over the head a few times and it really cleaned it right up!

I'm still a little worried about the pitting, but the only thing that will take that out is a proper run through a mill. I ran the stones over the block too for good measure.

Next up was popping on the new (used) water pump I got my hands on. Here's the old pump.

And the replacement.

I pulled the points housing off when I was working on the head because it prevented me from getting good strokes with the grinding stones. Well, that decimated the 40 year old gasket that was in there. So, I cut a new one out of some spare gasket material I had lying around.

I also ran the grinding stones over the mating surface on the head for the points housing. Everything was looking mighty smooth and clean!

One of the purchases I made when I got my new headgasket was a new oil pan bolt. The 40 year old crush washer on the original bolt was as good as dead and it was only like 400 yen for a new bolt and washer.

With everything looking good, I picked the block up and slotted it right in!

I've stabbed quite a few transmission input shafts into clutches and they've always been a nightmare. This one however slotted right in after just a few minutes of twisting and pushing!

It was getting dark, so I called it a night there. The next day though, I was right back out there popping the head on! The FSM says to torque the head bolts to 2.7 kg-m (20 ft. lbs), but I went a bit further to 3.0 kg-m (21.6 ft, lbs) just to be a little safer. Any way you cut it though, that's a miniscule amount of torque!

Then I started buttoning everything up. I ran into some serious problems with the outlet pipe on the water pump leaking like a sieve. I ended up removing the pipe from the pump and reinstalling my old pipe, which doesn't leak at drop.

I get everything hooked up, then filled the engine with oil, filled the transmission with oil and filled the cooling system with water. I took a few faithful breaths and cranked the engine over. Nothing. Won't even kind of start. The engine turns and turns with no results. I start desperately going over everything, thinking maybe my cam timing is out or my ignition timing is messed up (I did have the points housing completely off). Then, it dawns on me. While I bolted the alternator up and hooked the belt up, I didn't plug the alternator in. I popped the plug in and bolted on the positive wire, went back to the driver seat, pulled the choke and turned the key...

At first I got a bit of a cough out of her as the engine tried to clear out the flooding that resulted from me cranking it over with an ignition system that refused to work. Then, she burbled right into life and settled into a nice smooth idle.

I run around to the front and check for any leaks. Everything seems alright though! I give it some revs and she seems willing and happy.

Since I'm still on stands, I take the opportunity to run it through all the gears. I get into third and my speedometer cable that I thought didn't fit but put in the hole anyways suddenly pops into life. Awesome! I run up to fifth and give the throttle a quick blip and see 70 km/h at about 5,000 rpm. That's about 10 km/h higher than what I was getting in top gear with the 4 speed. Double awesome!

There's still a lot of stuff to button up, namely bleeding the brakes and cooling system. That'll have to wait for another day though cause it was dinner time.

No sir, I am not making fun of y'all. Perhaps you would like to shed some light as to why you think so? If it's because the grinding stones look a little not flat, then let me assure that they are indeed as flat as I'll ever need. They look rough, but they were actually really smooth. Plus, and this is the most important bit, they were free to use. I'm mostly broke and I have two other projects in the garage that need what little money I have left. So, anywhere I can save a buck, I definitely will. Although, I'll happily take donations!

There's been a long delay in-between posts and that is because of one major reason! Those that have been keeping up with my Mitsubishi 360 thread already know, but that reason is that I flew home to the US for Christmas holidays. It was awesome. And I think I put on about 10 pounds, which is also awesome. Here's a pic of what I was playing with over my break:

But, all vacations come to an end, so it was back on the plane and over the big blue ocean to Japan. Although, this time we played it smart and gave ourselves six extra days of vacation here in Japan, so that means I could get some work done in the garage! I started by finishing up the little Life! Brakes were bled, the rest of the engine was put back together, the cooling system was bled and test drives were taken.

It's like a completely different car! The engine stays perfectly cool and the whining noise coming from the engine is completely gone. I get nothing but smooth power and a beautiful two cylinder sound. Oh, and the 5-speed is bloody brilliant! The gear ratios are so different and when rowing through them they feel so much closer together, keeping the engine right in the sweet spot. Then, you slot into 5th and start to unwind and it's just miles faster than it used to be. Instantly noticeable and wonderfully satisfying. I couldn't be happier!

So, with all the big issues sorted, I could finally focus on something slightly less important that's been bugging me. Fog lights.

Problem solved! All I did to mount them was re-purpose the old mounts for the big guys. Because the Sev Marchals have a mounting bolt that can go 90 degrees, it was a cinch getting these done. I just took the old cross bar, cut it shorter and mounted it sideways, bolting on behind the license plate. Then I shortened the down bars and added an extra bend to them. Done and done! The lights needed a bit of a spacer to give them room, but all in all it was a super easy job.

The best bit? The little bumpers are no longer partially hidden! I just need to find the old bolts that filled in the two open holes.

I even like the size of the Sev Marchals better on this car.

Next up? The transmission is going to get a drain and refill soon. There's no telling how much dirt and nastiness the oil has picked up now that I've driven the car a bit, so it'll be good to get some fresh stuff in there. Other than that, my plans are to finally enjoy driving it!

Thanks for reading guys!

CheersDavid

(Here's a little something I thought might be fun to do. Like everyone else, I have to have some music rocking in the background while I get my wrench on. Well, while I was buttoning up the Life, these are the tunes I had going in the background. Maybe this will help someone find some new music for their garage time!)

Awesome to hear the Life is working well after her little overhaul, is it possible it could now, dare I say it, be....reliable? :O

The Marshals looks great, I think they really fit the character of the car. The old fogs were nice too, but they always seemed a little too big, these seem to fit perfectly, and the fact they are old-school yellow lenses is great!

Interesting choice of music on this post, haha...such a crazy game! On a musical game side note, have you ever heard of www.ocremix.org? Check it out sometime if you enjoy remixes and game music!

No sir, I am not making fun of y'all. Perhaps you would like to shed some light as to why you think so? If it's because the grinding stones look a little not flat, then let me assure that they are indeed as flat as I'll ever need. They look rough, but they were actually really smooth. Plus, and this is the most important bit, they were free to use. I'm mostly broke and I have two other projects in the garage that need what little money I have left. So, anywhere I can save a buck, I definitely will. Although, I'll happily take donations!

Maybe the stone is flat,but the person who is using the stone(can be anybody) cant apply the same amount off preasure on the stone on the whole surface of your cilinder head.What will happens most of the times,that you will round off A surface.And not making a nice even flat surface.So you may have caused a bigger sealing problem now.I say maybe!I,v seen guys using a long piece off steal beam to re surface a head.and with succesAnd i have seen guys using prof machines to do the same,and fail...I hope not,as i also know how much money it all costs to maintain a car

Random question Nakazoto - Do you have Service Manuals for your cars, or do you do everything without them? i.e. how do you know the proper torque settings, etc. for certain bolts and whatnot, or resistances in wiring, etc?

Glad to hear all the effort has been worth while with head & transmission, shame 5-speeds are undoubtedly rare. Just seeing the 8mm bolt heads mounting early Z 360 frt panels quickly reminds you not to go overboard tightening them up!

Thanks for the concern Mielko, but I think you think I'm removing way more material than I really am. Those stones are smooth to the touch and didn't remove much, if any, aluminum. I mostly used them to clean the surface up extremely well. I also have the benefit of having a cylinder head that is so small. The blocks nearly spanned the entire length of the head. Considering that the engine is running better than it ever has and it never gets hotter than the halfway point on the gauge, I'd say it's doing alright.

Darkstrike, I try to use a service manual whenever I can my hands on one, which isn't easy. For the Life I lucked out and 79Cord emailed a copy of the English service manual for Australia! He's been a real life saver! For the Bellett, I don't have a service manual so I've just been doing work based on what I see in pictures and how it seems that it should come apart or go together. That's one of the reasons I haven't touched the wiring yet, haha. When I rebuild the engine on the Bellett, I'm going to use a Haynes manual for a 1972 Chevy Luv pickup to find the right torque specs for all the bolts. The Luv came with the same engine only with lower compression pistons.

79cord, I had to triple check my torque conversion because it seemed so low!

So, the true test of reliability for any classic, in my opinion at least, is to make it handle daily drier duties for a bit. Well, after a week of daily driving the little Life, I can thankfully say all is well! The transmission could still benefit from a fluid change, but since oil is crazy expensive here, I think I'll hold off on that for just a little while longer. Other than that, she's running beautifully!

So, I ordered a nice little present for her. After putting the transmission in, it bothered me that my shift knob was for a 4-speed. I wanted to get an original Life GS 5-speed shift knob, but the only one I could find was 25,000 yen! That's nearly what I paid for the whole transmission! So, instead, I searched around for other cars that had dog-leg five speeds from the factory and bought this guy on Yahoo Auctions.

It's from an old Nissan Sunny. The numbers are pretty faded and "2" and "3" are all but gone, but since the knob only cost me 1,000 yen, I couldn't hardly say no.

It feels quite nice in the hand and matches the style of the interior very well I think.

While I was shopping on Yahoo Auctions, I picked up a spare air cleaner for 2,000 yen. It's in much better shape than the beat up one that was originally on my car. The new one is on the right in this picture.

But instead of just putting the new one on and calling it good at that, I thought I'd have some fun with my angle grinder first.

After a bit of a clean up and sand down, it was time for some paint. I chose to go with this nice deep blue because it's what i had in my garage and I didn't want to drive to the store.

And on the car!

A much nicer looking, open air intake! Well worth the effort.

I am very happy with how it turned out. Plus it sounds much better!

I also love how that blue looks and all the open space from not having the big yellow intake funnel thing jutting off to the side.

And that's all for this weekend! I didn't get much work done because I spent all day Saturday trying to seal the deal on a new toy. It might fall through, but here's hoping it doesn't!

That shift knob really looks like it belongs - in a way, I actually prefer the fact it's a bit worn (although it would've been nice if the 2nd and 3rd gear markings were still there, haha!)...if it looked new, it would be a bit out of place in your lived-in interior and would take away from the character of the car IMO .

As for the new engine cover, very nice! Did you decide to cut up the new one to put in your car or keep the better-condition new one as an "original" spare and cut up / paint your old one...? The blue certainly provides a nice contrast in your engine bay compared to the yellow...for some reason I dig the original "golden" yellow more than I probably should though!

I didn't figure it was easy finding Service Manuals for older rides...you're lucky 79Cord e-mailed you the English Aussie manual, kudos to you for that one 79Cord! I'd actually be interested in getting a copy of that manual if either you wouldn't mind sending it to me? As a bit of an all-around car nut, I've got a nice collection of documents (service manuals, wiring charts, user manuals, brochures, dimension charts, parts catalogs...) for some of my favorite rides tucked away on my hard drive and this generation of Life is seriously high on my list of potential imports down the road - would be nice to have the info were I ever to make it a reality (and also just for the sake of learning more about them) ! I love Keis, and the Life sounds like it would make a good choice for a inexperienced mechanic due to it's simplicity....we've all got to start somewhere!

Hopefully you can find some helpful info on the Bellet's wiring before you dive in, it will certainly be an uphill battle if you don't have some sort of reference point...

Color me intrigued re: the new toy, hope you have space in that little garage of yours for it with the Bellet and the Cosmo in there! Looking forward to the update!

Well done on the intake! I think the blue is a nice fitting color as well. The orange before was pretty unflattering. It makes me wonder, why many old cars had strange colored air intakes? Most that I see came stock with a funky color that matched nothing in the color line up of the model. Nowadays, everything is kept inconspicuous and hidden under a big engine cover but back in the day, it seemed a priority of all OEMs to make the intake stand out.

That blue intake does look clean, even if I think orange works better with the cars cream paint & the yellow fogs. I could imagine '60's-early '70s style lower side GT (GS-S?) stripes to go with it. Louder intake sounds do add more interest to a drive!

Wow, that IS quite a collection, thanks for the link 79Cord!!! I've already found and downloaded some info from there on some of my favorite cars that I didn't have before (The Life of course, Daihatsu Fellow, Suzuki Fronte, Mitsu Minica Skipper, FIAT 128, Citroën CX...)

Is that the same shade of blue for the intake that you used on the Bellet Nakazoto?

79Cord, thanks for the comments! I think some lower GT stripes would look really good on the car, but the paint would need to be a brighter white instead of the cream it is to really bring that out. When it gets a repaint, I think that'll be pretty close to what I aim for. Also, that flickr album is amazing! Thanks for sharing that!

Sideglide, I have no idea why so many factory intakes of yesteryear had wild colors. Come to think of it, my Mitsubishi had a nice light blue, the Life had that yellow and my Bellett has bright red. I think I may have to do more research and see just how many different variations in color there were.

Darkstrike, I totally agree that the shift knob just feels at home in that interior. It has just the right amount of wear to feel like it belongs. For the intake, I kept the nice new one as a backup and sliced up my old crappy looking one. I wanted the option to go back to stock in case I knackerd it all up. The blue is actually a random blue spray can I picked up at the local hardware store about a year or so ago. I just never really used it much. It is awfully close to the color on my Bellett, although I think it is a bit brighter. Send me a PM with your e-maill address and I can forward the Life manual on your way!

ColoradoKP, the rebuild kits and diaphragm for the accelerator pump both came from Auto Spot in Tokyo. That dude has been an absolute life saver for this car. Personally, I don't think it would be in drivable condition right now if not for his massive collection of parts. The rebuild kits are item NP-0015 on this page:http://auto-spot.net/parts/newparts.htmlAnd the diaphragm is located on this page (there are two diaphragms on this page, one is 30 mm, and one is 34 mm - the Life uses the 43 mm one):http://auto-spot.net/parts/diaphragm.html

Thanks everyone for the comments! An auction ends tonight for a potential brake upgrade on this little beast. Also, that new toy I'm chasing is totally not related to Honda, but it is very righteous (it totally won't fit in the garage, by the way). I'll know whether I managed to convince the dude who has it to sell it to me or not this weekend.

I had figured you had kept the new one as a spare, but I was surprised how well your old intake seemed to clean up after your hack n' spray job...had to double-check it WAS the old one! Do you think making the intake less restricted has added any more pep to the Life aside from a more awesome induction noise? I didn't think it was the same paint from your Bellett as the Bellett always looked darker in the pics, but it is a really nice color...I wonder how long it will take before standard-issue engine bay grime gets the best of it and that shiny paint starts to look less shiny...

An inadvertent thanks from me too for that Auto Spot link...if I do pick up a Life sometime in the next year or two and have it imported, it will be nice to know where to find parts (well...only if they would ship from Japan to North America...have you ever considered listing the shops you often purchase parts for your cars from on your website...?)

Good luck on the brake kit auction, and hoping your sale goes through...very curious to see what your potential "new toy" is! Any hints?

Last edited by darkstrike on Wed Jan 15, 2014 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.